Saturday, July 21, 2012

The Dark Knight Rises-review

“The Dark Knight” is one of the best superhero movies I have ever seen. It set the bar high with a bolder story and a more character driven arc. When the news of the final chapter in Christopher Nolan’s Batman universe came out it excited many. While it brings some fun new things to the table with new villains and some well shot action sequences, there are still aspects that make this the weakest in the Nolan Batman trilogy.

Batman, played by Christian Bale, has retired the costume and is now a recluse in his mansion. An encounter with a cat burglar, played by Anne Hathaway, gets Bruce Wayne back into his costume. A new threat has emerged in the form of Bane, played by Tom Hardy. He seems bent on destroying Gotham. Can Batman stop this powerful new force?

The good thing is that the casting is still damn good. With the regulars from the past movies and the additions of Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Tom Hardy, give the movie class. The action scenes seem to be filmed a lot better in this film then they were in the others- you can actually tell what is happening for a change.

The movie recalls events from the past movies, which is interesting to watch. Even characters like Dr. Crane/Scarecrow is back for the third movie. It comes off like fan service a bit but it’s also sort of fun to see more of the characters that we have seen in all the movies so far. Tom Hardy does a good job at playing Bane but his voice is sort of bizarre. It goes from an almost hard to hear, electronic voice to an English sounding dub at times.

On the other hand, if you are a comic fan the “twists” will be somewhat predictable. The thing that really is irritating is that the twists don’t do much for the movie except weaken the character of Bane. Nolan can at least be credited with making the characters in the Batman universe more realistic. Catwoman is at lot more believable in this version.

If anything, the problems with the movie are that it takes characters that in the comics are bold and have stories that are much more risqué and plays them too safe. To end this trilogy I expected something new brought to the table. The Joker was something new. This movie rehashes a lot of the themes of the first movie. While not the worst thing it was hard not to think that the end should try something bigger and bolder.

While not living up to the hype for me, “The Dark Knight Rises” is still a good movie. It’s damn long though. They could have helped things by cutting some of the time during the prison scenes. There is a lot going for it and it’s certainly worth seeing especially if you liked the other movies. If you are comic geek you’ll need to remember that the Nolan universe is a different from the one that you are used to reading about.